Tag: personality

A friend of mine told me that she took a test online and defined her socio type. I personally don’t believe in any other tests but an interview, where person speaks freely, not chooses answers. If you google these tests you will find a bazillion of them of all sorts and kinds and all nonsense=) I mean, if you know a good one, please give me a link in comments, but I haven’t come across anything legit so far.

To prove myself, I decided to take a test=) Now, when I already know my type, I wanted to check whether an online test would define my type accurately. To be honest, I was thinking it would refer me to a type which is close to mine, and has same traits but introverted instead, while I belong to extraverted type. The result was shocking =) The test identified me as a type which was almost completely opposite from me. It also defined me as an introvert, as I expected. In addition to that, it claimed one of my strongest traits (in reality) was my PoLR (biggest weakness). Now that’s a brutal mistake.

I want to show you, why tests are wrong and how they can easily be misinterpreted. As an example I would like to take this test, which I was talking about just now and share with you. The test is on MBTI, its not quite the same as Socionics, but as I said, I was ready to accept a result which was “almost there” giving a “discount” for differences in approach. But the result was dramatically different from my type, even in MBTI.

The very first question made me pause and think:

Errm… define difficult? Am I shy? No. Do I not know what to say when I introduce myself? Yes. Do I believe my introduction is perfect every time? No.

Better in what way? Let me ask the authors of this test another question: what is better red or round? I guess they ask “What would you rather prefer: to read a book or attend an event.” But! This is only my guess, I may be wrong! Author means one thing, but 3 different readers can read his question in 3 different ways. Same question here can be answered differently if I assume that the question is “What is better for self development?” or “What is better generally (e.g. for your child)?”

Now one of my favorites:

I have a favor to ask. Please, write in comments, how many people is considered to be many for you? For some, standing up in a work meeting and presenting a project is talking in front of many people. If you ask me, work meetings are cool, cause for me many people is this:

A stressful situation by definition is a situation when you feel tensed and anxious. So how else this question can be answered?..

To keep it short, even from few examples above we see, that major challenges of online (or any written or multiple choice) tests are:

No guarantee that the investigator and respondent understand questions in the same way

Differences in perception of categories and definitions

Also, I strongly believe that no one can be and should be characterized by the way they answer 60 questions with a multiple choice. C’mon people, we are more complex than that! What about our upbringing? Childhood? Environment where we developed personality? Possible traumas?.. When I do interviews to identify people’s types, I pay attention not only to WHAT do they think, but also WHY do they think so. Example: there is a question in the test “If the room is full, do you stay closer to the walls, avoiding the center?” That supposed to show whether you are an introvert or an extravert. I know a person who was once attacked from the back. She spent long time in hospital and had many surgeries, all that resulted is a psychological trauma. Despite being an extravert she will choose to stay closer to the wall, because that way she feels protected from her back so nobody can attack her again. Test would show that she is an introvert, because it cannot get the real reason of her choice.

To conclude my point I would like to mention that when I answered only 1 question and skipped the rest, the test still gave me a result of a type. This proves, that the system is fully automized and silly, it doesn’t even recognize whether there is sufficient data to make a judgement.

I highly recommend to avoid online tests or at least please don’t take them seriously. Your personality was developing for so many years and in different circumstances. Only an interview with a specialist, a human who, apart from “yes or no” answers, can also look deeper, process non-verbal signs, facial expressions, tone of voice and body language, can be the most trusted tool to identify your Socio Type.

Hi everyone! So normally the weekend posts shall be relaxed and mellow and we all start fresh on Monday. Well I decided to start now so when Monday comes its already too late to decide and everything is on full swing =)

As I promised I would like to share more practical information with you and starting today I would like to start a series of posts with descriptions of all 16 Socio types. You can see there how are they different and what might be the similarities between certain types. I believe this will be interesting for you. All of the types were given a short name which is descriptive of their main trait. Without making my introduction too long here we go: the first type:

The Inventor ( a.k.a. Intuitive Logical Extrovert – ILE)

Remember House MD? He is the distilled version of this type. As the name states, their type of Informational Methabolism makes them great inventors and their restless mind always has a project of solving a puzzle or creating a new device.
Those kids given a radio controlled helicopter will play with it for one day and then will take it for parts to see whats inside and how does it work, take the remote control apart, see how it works and will put it all back together to make a self-piloted flying saucer. When they see the world around them they have a unique ability to see inside of things and create something which no one could create before (no matter whether humanity needs their invention or not:) In any age they generally can be people of few words, unless you want to discuss how to make a rice cooker out of a credit card, match box and a shoe lace.They are often inventors in their field, they prefer to discover new routes off the beaten track.

Naturally they are good with systems, IT, electronics and this sort of stuff. However they can work in other fields too, being most successful in jobs that require thinking out of the box, finding a way of doing things, finding hidden meanings and routes and most importantly doing something which nobody else can do.

One can’t be good at everything and Inventors are one of worst types to work with people (trust me you do not want this one to attend to your customer care hotline!) They don’t really know ethical right from wrong, they can be blunt, tactless and sometimes can unintentionally offend people. They suffer from this too: its very difficult for them to see other people’s intention and attitude towards them. Unfortunately others use this and The Inventors can easily get cheated and betrayed. While other Socio types could have seen it was coming, The Inventors only can conclude the facts when the damage is already done.

As much as they don’t surround themselves with comfort and their home might be very messy, they appreciate when someone takes care of it. They love good food, cosy home and comfortable living. They just can’t really take care of it by themselves, so they normally look for a partner who can help them with this aspect.

Inventors enjoy a good laugh, occasional parties and positive people. They love to joke and to be entertained. They like people who express their emotions freely (especially positive emotions) being with such people they feel “recharged” and motivated.

Inventors don’t like to talk about history, time management and all esoteric stuff. They are however rarely late, tend to complete tasks on time and have a good sense of trends and opportunities in future. If they feel that their interests are being infringed they will react strongly often by saying something like: “Its a wrong time!” “You are wasting my time!” “Not now!” etc.

They make good managers or administrators as well as they know how to execute tasks well. They don’t like to talk about it or make manuals etc. Its easier done than said in this case. A remarkable trait of The Inventor personality is that he will always come to help and he will know exactly what to do in the situation. They can easily procrastinate during long time, but their sense of urge won’t ever let them down: once they feel its the right time they can mobilize quickly and become active, earn money and get involved in new projects.

Click “Follow” to stay up to date with future posts and may be you will see your type soon! Please let me know your comments and may be you would like me to include specific information about types which I didn’t cover? Let me know and I will gladly do it!

-“You eat a lot!” …BOOM!… he said it. My head got completely empty and I felt like each ear got covered with an empty glass. All I could hear was that dull ringing sound of vacuum filling my head. I stared at him waiting for some other words, something else I could grab on and continue a conversation. But there was nothing. Ha stared back at me most probably wondering what was wrong.

In fact, he didn’t say anything wrong. I was eating a lot, and it was fine. But he hit my “Painful spot” (PoLR) with precision. This is how it feels. Absolutely innocent comment, not even criticism makes you feel lost and helpless like a fish thrown out of water. In my previous post I promised to share how to deal with that, so here we go:

Accept that people don’t have a purpose to hurt you in 90% of the time, they are just being themselves and they are different from you. Nobody is attacking you, even if it feels like they do. They don’t mean it.

Don’t fire back. Our first reaction naturally will be to defend ourselves by counterstrike. Remember the point #1 and react how you would react if it wasn’t an attack. It will take time to master so don’t kill yourself when you fail, it’s a really touch skill to acquire.

Your mind is very smart. It will protect you and most of the times you won’t provoke discussions on painful subject, cause your mind won’t let you. So do yourself a favor and avoid getting into situations where the subject is the main topic of the event (no cooking shows for me;)

At last I have to mention: be sure that this is your PoLR. Sometimes people say something offensive but if you don’t feel like I described (vacuum in your head and inability to come up with a feedback) thats not PoLR.

So now when we discussed how to act in these frustrating situations, let’s talk about how to train yourself not to get hurt – thats more interesting isn’t it? :) As we already know it is not easy to study a subject of your PoLR, however in small doses you can train yourself and you can strengthen yourself. The first step is to become aware of what your weakness is. Once you become aware you can control the informational intake on the subject as well as you can be more tolerant to others when they accidentally hurt you because truly it’s not their fault: it’s just the way your mind works against the way their mind works and there is nothing wrong with either of them. To do become aware you need to identify your personality type, and – sorry:) – the bad news is: it’s very difficult to do that by yourself and I will explain why later. In the meantime the good news is that I have a little surprise for you. I will help you to find out your type! I will share all the details in my next post so if you’re interested to learn more about yourself stay tuned!